[betty boop]

Incorrect. The first thing that a male African lion does when he takes over a pride is to kill all the cubs of his predecessor, thus maximizing his own reproductive success.

My assertion was that "there is no murder rate among lions." I stand by it.

So ascendent male African lions kill [male?] cubs to ensure their reproductive success. This behavior is not universal to all African lions [I understand the females of the species do not do this]. It seems to me that if this behavior serves a natural end, it is not "murder." By "natural end," here I mean an end (goal or purpose) which is not "willed" by the particular lion [for lions do not "will"]. Rather the behavior in question reflects the execution of a "program" (if I might put it that way) which is inherent in the species, which tends to increase species fitness over time.

Thank you for your correction, GL of Sector 2814; but it does not make Professor Ruse's analogy of lion behavior and Detroit thug behavior [which is self-willed] as equivalent examples of "murder" any stronger, or any truer. It is a false analogy from the get-go; it is moreover a demonstration of fallacious reasoning. For it presupposes an equivalency between two inequivalent things. I.e., African lions and Detroit thugs.

[Quix]

Hmmmmmmm

what hoops the ignorant jump through to fabricate morality out of a vacuum.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!

I strongly agree that the killing of cubs by some incoming male lions (so they can breed sooner) is programmed behavior. They are very gentle with their own offspring as I recall.